Follow Me Farm

08/19/2026

Horses are so much more than a furry 4-wheeler!

“I work for a living, so should my horse!”

This mindset is a toxic way that people project their own frustration with their lives onto their horses.

It is used to justify forcing horses who are clearly uncomfortable, stressed and anxious to do things on the basis that:

“They only have to work for 1 hour a day and then have their whole lives paid for!”

Meanwhile, many of these horses have the following to look forward to after their ride:

- A “luxury” stall with boarded up walls and no ability to interact with other horses. Standing in here for anywhere from 12 to 24 hours a day.

- Individual turnout with no ability to so much as touch noses with other horses.

- Often going hours a day without access to forage, putting them at risk of stomach ulcers.

The “paid for life” is often more comparable to a prison sentence than anything else.

And, with all that said, as humans who choose to seek out getting a horse, we do not to get to leverage the fact that we pay for their needs as a reason to force them to do things when they are struggling.

In choosing to get a horse, we take on the responsibility of ensuring that we are providing what they need to survive.

It is something we willingly take on, not something to complain about.

And it is something that is our job to do, whether we can use the horse for sport or not.

Anyone who has the impression that a horse needs to be physically useful for them in order to deserve them paying for the care should not have a horse.

Because, your willingness to cover your horses expenses, and provide their needs should exist whether you are riding them or not.

This very type of attitude is behind how discardable horses are.

It is very normalized for people to get rid of horses when they no longer serve the purpose of riding.

It is selfish, irresponsible, and unacceptable to normalize the idea that it is appropriate to no longer have horses hold any value when they cannot be ridden.

It is also egotistical and selfish to maintain the perspective that a Horse owes you something when you have ultimately chosen to get them.

If you value your horse more as a tool than you do as a companion, that will come out in how entitled you feel to using their body, even when they are telling you that they are mentally or physically not OK.

Your horse does not need to work a job in order to deserve the care that you provide.

They have always deserved it.

And it is pretty weird that you feel that this is a transactional relationship.

For the record, despite how unforgiving and cruel the world can be, you also deserve to have your needs met even when you cannot work.

So, perhaps this time we change the paradigm instead of enabling and normalizing harm.

08/02/2026

🥹🥰🐎

07/30/2026

For the love of the horse, know better do better! Don’t be afraid to advocate for your horse. Speak up, excuse yourself from lessons/situations if you need to. If you feel something is wrong, don’t let people gaslight you into feeling like you need to do it… your horse will thank you 💖🐎

A tough pill to swallow:

The majority of people who engage in abusive behavior likely aren’t even clocking their behaviour as abusive.

As many of us know, there are lots of people in the Horse industry that engage in harmful training practices.

Most of these people do not consider their actions harmful.

Does that erase the harm? No.

But, it paints a valuable picture.

Abuse exists with or without intent.

You can love a person or animal with all of your heart and still engaging physically or emotionally abusive behaviour without being aware of the fact that you are doing so.

Often times, our society paints a narrative that creates this illusion of the abuser as some villain-esque person who is doing terrible things intentionally for the purpose of causing pain.

This is seldom the case and it makes it really hard for victims to properly identify abuse when it is happening, and it also makes it harder for people to hold themselves accountable when they engage in harmful behavior.

Abuse does not only exist within a vacuum, where the perpetrator of it is doing so deliberately and with the knowledge that they are being abusive.

Most of the time it is done by people who have been taught that their behaviour is accepted in normal.

Most of the time, they will have excuses for their behaviour and justification for why it is fine.

They will downplay it. They will sanitize it. They will make excuses.

With horses we see this in:

“A human hitting a horse can’t possibly hurt them, they are way larger.”

“You need to do this for safety.”

“The horse is responding to this harsher bit because they like it better.”

There is no shortage of language used to create comfort towards methods that are reliant on leveraging discomfort for control.

I grew up being taught this type of mindset from the age of 4.

I became comfortable hitting horses and manhandling them to get what I wanted.

I wasn’t taught any alternatives to discouraging unwanted behavior other than using physical punishment.

This whole time, I loved horses and did not want to hurt them.

But, I consistently had this type of behaviour modelled to me by adults and I was consistently told it was OK.

For years, I couldn’t conceptualize an alternative.

I behaved abusively to horses, but I never would’ve identified myself as an abuser.

The same can be said about many many people within the industry.

Including people who will read posts like this, and believe that they have never been guilty of such behavior.

A lot of times, there is a mental block that leads to people attributing different traits to how the training methods they are using actually work.

Many people will use harsh equipment and believe that it is soft because they apply less pressure to it.

When, in reality, the Horse is just responding quicker with less pressure because the equipment itself amplifies the pressure.

This leads people to feeling like they are being gentle when they really aren’t.

So, TLDR:

An abuser is not an evil villain.

Anyone can engage in abusive behavior.

They can do so without realizing it. They can do so without malicious intent. They can do so while still experiencing the utmost love for those that they harm.

People can also cease engaging in harmful behaviour once they learn how to do better.

I am an example of that because I have made a lot of changes in how I show up for horses and a lot of the things that I now criticize are practises that I once believed in.

We don’t have to make harm our legacy.

But a huge part of avoiding that involves having the self reflection to admit when we have engaged in harm.

The term “abuse” tends to make people very defensive.

But, if we look at the actual definition of it, it is a a relevant descriptor when we are looking at a lot of harmful behaviour.

Whether intentional or not.

Humans have just taken this term and made it out to be something that is only applicable to the worst type types of villains that they can encounter, instead of a trait that any person can embody regardless of intent, if they don’t know better.

Having good intentions does not cancel out the impact of what your behaviour might have on another being.

This is why good intentions aren’t enough.

We also need to have an informed perspective on how our behaviour is impacting the animals that we train.

Top photo: me as a kid, probably around age 10 or 11, on my Arabian. He is wearing an incredibly thin twisted wire bit that most definitely hurt him. He was light and responsive in it because of the pain. I did not use it with the belief that it was hurting him, but it still hurt him. It was wrong. It was mistreating him. Regardless of intent.

Bottom photo: more recently with my horse Milo

07/17/2026

🫁🐎

The severe fires throughout California over the past three months have exposed humans and animals to unhealthy air containing wildfire smoke and particulates. These particulates can build up in the respiratory system, causing a number of health problems including burning eyes, runny noses and illnes...

07/13/2026

Great breakdown!

07/12/2026

Most barns in America operate on a schedule that looks something like this: horses come in from the paddocks in the early afternoon, stand in stalls through the night, get turned out in the morning, then after the feeding and mucking is done, come back in sometime in the early afternoon, and stand in their stalls again through the late afternoon, evening, and night, Piper Klemm writes.

If you examine it honestly from the horse’s perspective, from the barn management perspective, and from the perspective of everyone who needs access to those horses during the day, it is also, in some cases, exactly backwards. While night turnout in the summer or heat is not a radical idea, it is time for it to be given more and serious thought for year round horse management.

Research shows that horses are happiest and healthiest with regular turnout, and that allowing horses freedom of movement and social interaction fulfills basic needs that support equine welfare. The question is not whether turnout matters (that is settled) but how much of it the horse actually gets under the typical schedule. In most working hunter-jumper barns, the honest answer is somewhere between six and eight hours on a good day, and considerably less on busy show prep days, bad weather days, or days when the schedule simply runs long. Night turnout, by contrast, gives a horse the entire dark stretch of hours — realistically twelve to sixteen hours outside, moving, grazing, breathing fresh air, and doing what horses are physiologically built to do.

Researchers have found that animals in natural settings spend significantly more time in restorative rest cycles compared to stalled counterparts, and that the physical space of a field encourages low-impact movement that reduces joint stiffness while building muscle tone. A lack of turnout is linked to stereotypic behavior, digestive problems, and weaker musculoskeletal tissues. Every extra hour outside is an hour of circulation, hoof stimulation, gut motility, and mental decompression that the stall simply cannot replicate regardless of how well it is managed.

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/07/08/the-case-for-night-turnout-year-round-why-flipping-the-schedule-is-worth-considering/

06/24/2026

This is a good post! Fortunately for us, we are blessed with great boarders! 🐎

We asked equine professionals, “What is one thing you wish clients understood?” Their answers are important for riders of all ages to read and understand.

“That “just one thing ” I do for you that takes me 5 minutes? Yeah, that actually adds an hour to my day. And if I don’t charge for doing the “little” extra things, then I can’t get to the big things”

“How hard it is to go 24/7 365 days of the year. And the money/time/mental facilities it takes to run the farm…”

“The tremendous amount of responsibility we carry on our shoulders. For the client, as well as the horse.”

“That horses aren’t vehicles that anyone can drive. You can’t just buy a 3’6″ horse and do the 3’6″ any more than you can just buy a grand prix horse and do the grand prix.”

“Organizing turnout is way harder than you expect. Who goes where, for how long, with a buddy or not. It is way more thoughtful than just putting a horse in a field.”

“The most expensive ponies are the old ones stepping down. If you want a deal, ask for a green or quirky one.”

“Just because I’m available to the horse 24/7 doesn’t mean I need to be available to the humans 24/7! Clients understand that we drop everything for the horses at all hours, and they expect the same for them which is really unfair. Clients who respect boundaries and our ability to have free time or a day off are worth their weight in gold.”

“There is no guarantee that your horse will stay sound.”

Next time you head to the barn or chat with your trainer, try keeping these things in mind. While questions are always welcome, the timing and the way that you ask them can be key. Remember, your trainer wants you and your horse to succeed, so there is almost always a reason for everything they do!

06/22/2026

“Let them carry their saddle” 🐎

You drove forty-five minutes each way. You packed the snacks. You wrote the check. And now you are standing at the rail watching your child stare at the horse while simultaneously watching a video on their phone, half present in a place that deserves their full attention, Parker Worthington writes.

Sound familiar?

The barn is one of the last genuinely analog experiences available to a child these days, and that is not an accident… It’s a feature. Horses do not respond to distracted riders. They do not care about follower counts. They demand presence, patience, and the kind of slow, attentive observation that is increasingly rare in the life of a ten-year-old who has been raised in a world of instant feedback and infinite scroll. Here is how you, as the adult in the car, can help make the most of this irreplaceable time.

1. Take the Phone the Moment They Hop Out of the Car

Not later. Not after they check one more thing. The moment the car door opens and the barn smell hits, the phone goes into your bag. Do this cheerfully, consistently, and without negotiation. Replace it with an analog dial watch — a real one, with hands, that they have to actually read — so they can track their lesson time and their chores without being tethered to a screen. The watch is not punishment. It is a tool that teaches them to orient themselves in time without a device doing the thinking for them. It also makes them feel enormously grown-up, which, at ten, is most of the battle.

2. Teach Them to Arrive Early and Walk Around

The thirty minutes before a lesson are not downtime. They are the lesson before the lesson. Teach your child to arrive early, walk through the barn quietly, look at the horses, notice which ones seem energetic and which seem settled, check the water buckets, observe the general atmosphere. This habit builds the kind of ambient awareness that separates a rider from someone who merely sits on a horse.

3. Let Them Carry Things

A ten-year-old can carry a saddle. They can carry a grooming bucket, a water bucket, a hay net, a stack of wraps. Let them. Do not carry things for your child at the barn unless they are genuinely too heavy or there is a safety reason to intervene. The physical experience of caring for a horse, including the weight of the tack and the logistics of the grooming kit, is part of the education. Children who are carried through barn chores grow up to be riders who don’t understand why things take as long as they do.

📎 Read more tips at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/06/21/ten-things-you-can-do-to-actually-help-your-ten-year-old-at-the-barn/
📸 © Heather N. Photography

06/18/2026

💖🐎

''He's wasted with me...''

I find it interesting when people classify their horse as ''wasted'' or give it as a reason for selling them.

I'm not saying these people have poor intentions, but it begs the question - why do we attribute so much worth to a what a horse can do, and why do we see it as such a concern when they aren't doing what they could do?

Somewhere along the way, it feels like a horse's worth has become tied to performance and talent, to how far they could go in the ''right hands''.

But horse's don't live like that. They don't measure their success against rosettes, qualifiers, titles or double clears. Their benchmark of success is much simpler: survival, a full belly and sound limbs. They certainly don't wake up every day worrying about whether their reaching their ''full potential''.

A horse doesn't feel wasted because it's hacking once a week, when it could be jumping 1.40s, that's a construct we've created.

Of course, it is completely valid to have ambitions and to want a horse capable of achieving them, but is it then worth asking ourselves if the pressure we put on our horses to 'improve' and 'progress' is actually about them… or is it more about us?

Because, at the end of the day, a horse's value isn't in its ceiling, it's in its mere existence, wellbeing and the partnership it shares with the person at the end of the rope or reins.

A horse not living a life on the top rung of the potential ladder is not a failure. A horse that is loved, cared for and has it's needs met is not wasted, it's lucky.